Front Cover- Stage Four

Finally, I added extra details to make it look like a real magazine. This included a barcode, an official website for the magazine, the issue number, price and the month it was "published". I also repositioned my cover lines and label.

Front Cover- Stage Three

The next thing I added was a label saying 'Poster Special' which is red with black text. It also has a drop shadow to give the effect that it is a real sticker. It is in the font 'Adler'. I also added the main cover line saying "Josie, the past, the present and the future!" which is in red and the font '28 Days Later'

Front Cover- Stage Two

Next, I moved the title down to allow space for additional text promoting a competition. This was all in the font 'Adler' and is red apart from the words 'Meet BMTH' which is black. Then I added text at the bottom of the page, also in the font 'Adler' saying 'Plus!- Sonisphere Lineup 2011 Revealed!' which is all in red. Then I added three cover lines. The cover lines in red are larger than the black text because they are more important.

Front Cover- Stage One

First I cut out the background of the photo and made the background light grey. Then I adjusted the photo's brightness and contrast. Next I added the title name 'Arena' in the font 'Trashed" in capital letters.

Photo for front cover

This is the photo I will use for my front cover. Obviously, as there are people and other things in the background, I will cut the photo out of the background using photoshop first. The brightness and contrast will also have to be edited.

Title font ideas

These are the font ideas for my magazine's title. Black isn't necessarily going to be my chosen colour for my title, but these are just previews. The reason I picked fonts that are 'distressed' or 'distorted' is because I feel these types of fonts are used most in the Rock magazine industry, For example in Kerrang! or Rocksound. The fonts I like the look of most are the second font down on the left hand column, "Trashed" and the bottom font in the right column, "28 Days Later".

Information about my chosen music genre

Rock music
"Rock music is a genre of popular music that entered the mainstream in the 1960s...The sound of rock often revolves around the electric guitar, bass guitar, drums and keyboard instruments, or since the late 60s, synthesizers."
Rock music has many sub-genres including folk rock, glam rock, heavy metal, hard rock, progressive rock, punk rock, indie-rock hardcore and grunge as well as many others.
A few examples of popular rock bands from different sub-genres are Nirvana, The Beatles, The Sex Pistols, Green Day, Pink Floyd, Blur, Oasis, Led Zepplin and My Chemical Romance.

Magazine ideas

The genre of my music magazine is rock.
I sent out a survey and the most popular title was 'Arena'.
The other name choices were Venue and Sold-Out
I liked this title best because it suggests the idea of bands playing live in concerts.
The target audience of my magazine is 16-24.

Venue II
Sold-Out IIIIII
Arena IIIIIIIII

Inside Kerrang!

Inside
There are 63 pages in this issue, 16 of which are adverts (approximately 25%)
The products advertised are band merchandise, albums and singles on various formats (CD, mp3 etc), upcoming tours/concerts, clothing, video-games and current television programmes.
The featured articles/topics in this issue are Band breakups, bands currently in the process of recording new albums, bands having troubles, personal struggles of band members, album re-releases, new album releases and bands who have just finished recording but have not yet released the album.
the types of articles in this issue are separated into "music related", and "personal"
There are 10 double-page spreads and they are mostly about upcoming albums and personal struggles of bands.
There are also quite a few advertorials which are hard to distinguish whether they are adverts or articles.
This magazine does have a "house style", for example, next to the page numbers there is a small "Kerrang!" logo written in capital letters and also a recurring theme of the article topics on the top right or left hand corners. Another example of the house style is that the articles, headings and general writing style is very colloquial.
The house style is appropriate to the target audience which implies that the target audience, mostly young people aged 16-25, will like being 'spoken' to colloquially and being able to find what the article is about just by looking at the top hand corner of the page.

Cover analysis Kerrang!

The cover
The magazine title is "Kerrang!". The magazine's name is onomatapoeic and "refers to the sound made when playing a power chord on an electric guitar"
The title logo is white and in capital letters. it is in a sans-serif font and is meant to look worn around the edges. It is about half covered by members of the band Parkway Drive but is still recognisable.

There is a strapline. It says "My Chemical Romance: Access all areas live report!" and is all in white apart from "My Chemical Romance" which is in yellow.The whole strapline is in capital letters.

The main image of this issue (#1337) is of the band Parkway Drive. They are all smiling and looking straight at the camera. They are all wearing different clothing- The lead singer wearing a shirt, and the others wearing various coloured t-shirts. The band's lead singer is standing slightly in front of the other members and is turned slightly to the side, whereas the others are facing forward.Other images appear on the cover. One is of the lead singer of the band My Chemical Romance, Gerard Way, one is of three members of the band Bring Me the Horizon. The other images are of the band Green Day as they are promoting the posters inside this issue, which is a Green Day poster special.

The cover lines promote Escape the Fate's new album, Stone Sour and Avenge Sevenfold's current tour, and interview with the singer of the band Linkin Park and the band Bring Me the Horizon taking part in the "K! quiz".• Explain the connotations of typefaces (fonts), graphics, colours etc.
The language on the cover is very colloquial and the magazine 'talks' to the reader as it says things such as 'Access all areas live report' and 'Parkway Drive- the band you need to hear right now!" making the reader feel personally involved in this.

The cover is similar to that of other magazines of this music genre, as there is generally a band or a member of a band on the front of 'rock' magazines. I think its USP (unique selling point) is taht there are lots of posters included in every issue and that there is the "K! quiz" also in every issue.
The magazine title is distinctive as it is larger than most titles, meaning is is eye catching. It is also white and on a balck background, which also brings the attention of the reader.

Kerrang! General magazine analysis

GeneralBauer Consumer Media publishes the magazine 'Kerrang!'. They also own "more than eighty influential media brands spanning a wide range of interests, including Heat, GRAZIA, Closer, MCN, FHM, Parker's, MATCH, Magic 105.4, Kiss 100, Kerrang!, Q and the Big City Network" according to their website.
Kerrang!'s target audience is claimed to be 16-25 year olds
Kerrang! costs £2.20 and is released weekly.
Its total circulation is 43,000.
The data available for Kerrang! on the NRS website is that 421,000 people bought Kerrang! between June 2009 and June 2010 and that more 15-44 year olds read it than the 45+ age group. Also, a lot more men read Kerrang! than women (approximately 60% of the readers were men).
According to a pdf on the ABC website, Kerrang!'s circulation in is 42,967 in total (41,551 in the UK and the R.O.I and 1,416 in other countries). No data for the monthly revenue streams from advertising and circulation is available.

Rocksound Magazine- Inside Analysis

Inside
There are 115 pages, 50 of which are adverts (43%)
The products advertised are band merchandise, albums and singles on various formats (CD, mp3 etc), upcoming tours/concerts, clothing, video-games and current television programmes.
The article topics in this issue are new albums, tour access all areas, bands talking about personal experiences, album re-releases, and band breakups
The types of articles featured are "music related" and personal, for example, some are about new albums or recent concerts, whereas others are about bands' personal lives.
There are 15 double page spreads and they are about band's personal lives, an album's 10th anniversary re-release (Deftones- 'White Pony') and new albums.
There are quite a few advertorials, which made me wonder if they were adverts or articles. I only realised they were advertorials after double-checking multiple times.
The magazine's unified house style is that the type of article featured it mentioned at the top left or right hand corner and that next to the page numbers it says "rocksound.tv"
This house style is appropriate to the target audience because it is implying that these are the things the target audience likes, e.g it says "the noise" etc in the top corners which is colloquial and appeals to young people (aged between 16- 25) who are the target audience.

Rocksound Cover Analysis

The cover
The magazine is titled ‘Rocksound’ which connotes that the genre of music included and featured is rock music.

The title logo is white and in capital letters. There are no spaces between the words ‘rock’ and ‘sound’ and the edges of the letters on this particular font are meant to look worn or 'distressed'. It is partially hidden by the front-man of the band ‘Bring me the Horizon’ but it is still recognizable of saying ‘Rocksound’. It is in a sans-serif font. The logo is similar to many magazine titles, particularly in the Rock genre as, for example, it is in capital letters (like NME, Q, MOJO, Kerrang! etc) and is distressed (like Kerrang!).

There is a strapline. It says "Exclusive! Brigade CD Inside + Win! a PlayStation 3" and is all in capitals. It is in a sans-serif font like the title and is mostly in white except for "Exclusive!" and "Win!".

The main image is of the band ‘Bring me the Horizon’ all standing in a group, with the lead singer standing slightly in front of the other four members. They are all staring straight at the camera and are all wearing plain white t-shirts and dark jeans. They all have expressionless faces which don't seem to display any emotion.

No other images appear on the cover.
The content promoted by the cover lines is Bring Me the Horizon's "Past, present and future", an access all areas report on the band Architects' current tour, Escape the Fate's new album, 30 Seconds to Mars' frontman's "famous last words" and Cancer Bats answering questions from fans.
• Explain the connotations of typefaces (fonts), graphics, colours etc.
I feel that the connotations of the colours used (Black, white, red, yellow and a small section in blue) are used to make the magazine as eye-catching as possible. As the background is black, the fonts used over the top must be legible and clear, which means that the colour must be as light as possible, while also standing out. The contrast of using white text on a black background is very effective, as both colours are polar opposites, yes compliment each other. The yellow writing on the black background also has a similar effect. The fact that the writing for the title and the main cover-lines is the same colour as the t-shirts worn by the cover band (Bring me the Horizon) works very effectively in setting a house-theme. The yellow and red fonts are used to make the writing stand out from the rest of the sentence, for example making 'Exclusive!', "Win!" and "Ten page special + Posters + Stickers" stand out amongst the white text.
The yellow 'sticker' graphic is covering the Rocksound title, making it so that the reader can see it as soon as they've looked at the title. It also stands out amongst the black background and white font, very much like the yellow text. It shows a sense of urgency to the reader by being so clear, making them feel that they HAVE to know whether "Danger Days" is a "Win or Fail?"
The language used is very direct and aimed at the reader e.g "Cancer Bats: answer YOUR questions" and "Win!" making the reader feel like the magazine was written only for them and gives them a sense of involvement.
The cover of this magazine looks similar to many music magazines aimed at this particular genre (rock) as it has a photo of a band on the front cover and there are cover-lines on the sides, with the band names larger than the comments about them. The unique selling point of this magazine (USP) is that it is released monthly rather than weekly, so includes more content etc, a compilation CD of the 'latest music' comes with every issue and also other additional "free gifts" such as posters are included most of the time.
The size of the main story's cover lines is very big and distinctive, which makes it stand out from other magazines which use more subtlety.

Rocksound Magazine Analysis

General

The company who publish the magazine ‘Rocksound’ is called Sonic Publishing, who also publish 'Artrocker', 'Behind the Sofa', 'Clickmusic', 'Neu Magazine', 'Rocklouder', 'Screengeek', 'This is Fake D.I.Y' and 'Totally Movies', which are lesser known titles.

The publisher's website says nothing about the target age but the magazine has been quoted as saying their magazine is “Aimed at 15-24 year olds”.

It costs £3.90 per issue, and is released once a month (13 times a year including a christmas/new year issue).

Its Total Average Circulation Per Issue is 15,005 (10,162 in the UK and R.O.I and 4,843 in other countries)

There is no data available for Rocksound on the NRS website. The onl data on Rocksound's circulation is on a pdf from the ABC website. The approximate monthly revenue streams from advertising and circulation are not available.

updated contents page

First, I added two blue rectangles to surround my page descriptions. I then added a photo of the prize of the competition, an iPod touch. I was going to include a photo of the "new" common room but I couldn't take one, so instead I filled the space with extra page descriptions and made the iPod picture large.

contents page

The background is black and I have used the same font on my contents page as I did on the Front cover. It is also in the same colour. Also, I included the school's logo in the top right hand corner of the page to make it consistent. I have also included the same font at the bottom when advertising the competition and in the same colour as it is on the front cover. I used that same font for my page numbers which are in white and are large. my page descriptions are in a font I haven't used before, called "Markerfelt" and are the colour maroon, because it is one of the school's colours.

first front cover

The first thing I did to my picture, was add the school logo into another layer and put it in the top right corner and then I wrote my magazine's title in the school colours; maroon and light blue. Next I added cover lines for the magazine's 'main story' and also added a cover line about a competition right at the bottom of the page. After that, I edited the picture by changing the brightness and the contrast to make it look more interesting than the original photo.

Add caption

original photo for front cover

i need

to think of a magazine title.

Preliminary Task

Preliminary exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally you must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate your grasp of DTP.